DualShock 4 Issue May Have You Buying Games Without Your Knowing

For those of you that didn’t know, you can use your DualShock 4 to control your PS3. You may want to reconsider doing that though. Recently, some gamers have accidentally purchased games while using their DS4 on their PS3s. Even more, Sony is refusing refunds. Don’t let this happen to you.

A few forum users on the RLLMUK forums have reported that while playing Dark Souls II on their PS3s with a DS4, that games were purchased on on the PS4 PSN store on their PS4. Here is what one of the forum users, Timmo, had to say:

Ok, most of you will find this funny (I know I would), I’m fuming.

Playing Dark Souls 2 on the PS3 with my PS4 controller, I leave my PS4 on as it’s downloading updates.

Turns out the controller can control both at the same time.

So my inputs on Dark Souls buy me FIFA on PS4 (a game I already own) and British Cop skin pack (I don’t even know what this is). Get an email on my tablet telling me so.

Ask to speak to his superior and they won’t come on the phone. He then tells me support staff have said it’s not possible to control two devices at once. He doesn’t seem to believe me.

Half of me wants to trade this in for an Xbox with Titanfall right now.

Another user, LongHairStu, had the same experience, while playing the same game. Here are his thoughts on what happened:

Yeah, hi. *Raises hand* Me too. Kind of. I had two Dark Souls sessions – at midnight, when the PS4 pad seemed to work fine, and at lunchtime, when I couldn’t get it to work. Can’t remember why, but it must have been disconnected when I turned the PS3 on, as fixing it took switching everything off, plugging it in (changing USB port at the time), and restarting. Then it worked. When I saw the standby light on the PS4 later on, I figured I’d just turned it on. I was mortified when I saw Battlefield there, and then I noticed that I’d watched a film as well.

I guess it must have been in that time that the PS4 pad wasn’t properly connected to the PS3 that it happened. Notwithstanding the distance selling point, I appreciate that I might not have a leg to stand on, but I’ll be looking to ask anyway – I can’t easily weather a £68 loss. heck, I have zero interest inBattlefield 4 (hey, if only there was some way of selling on digital content…), if it had been Assassin’s Creed 4, or Need for Speed at the same price, or Strider/Trine 2 for £15 or so, I probably could have taken it on the chin. So, yeah, fuming is a word I can get on board with. Guess I’ll email Sony, but I’ll be leaving my dignity at the door.

Really taken the shine off what was an otherwise great day. My birthday, as it happens. And do keep laughing – I’ve laughed at it now and then, it doesn’t really pay to get too snarled up over it.

What is happening with these gamers, is while they are playing on their PS3s with their PS4s still turned on, the DS4 controller is controlling both consoles. While inputting commands in the game the also end up purchasing game of of PSN. The Escapist has reached out to Sony, and as of now has received no response.

Here is some advice for those of you who are going to use your DS4 on your PS3. Either turn off your PS4, or disconnect your credit card from your PSN account while playing.

That’s all for now from me, The Jay Doctor. One commenter on the RLLMUK forum said that Sony is not responsible, as it was the gamer who entered the button inputs to buy a game. What is your take? Let me know in the comments, or on Twitter, where you can contact/follow. I have provided you with some handy links below, for your own convenience.

Then dont waist your precious time reading them. After that find something better to do instead of being an *** and writing worthless comments. I hope someday people *** all over the things that make you happy because thats clearly what you like to do to others.

Seems rather stupid of Sony to have set it up like this. If the DS4 controller is compatible with the PS3, they should have made it so it won’t control the PS4 if linked to the ps3 at the same time. That said, I’m completely with the poor people who accidentally bought stuff. That’d really be annoying.

I think what happens is that it sends commands through the usb for ps3 and commands through bluetooth at the same time because there must be no trigger to switch them so when the usb is pugged into the ps4 the commands the ps4 accepts them through usb and sony was to lasy to make a trigger to switch them

It’s not accepting two masters. The DS4 does not link with the PS3 wirelessly therefore it will not change the master mac address in the controller which was set by the PS4. It’s perfectly possible to control both systems at once, in theory.

Why on earth are you requesting help on an article that has nothing to do with the thing you need help on? GO TO THE FORUMS! Just because this article is “active” doesn’t mean you should post offtopic ***!

Testing this and doesn’t happen to me. Just connect my ds4 to my ps3 without pressing the home button whilst my ps4 is on and doesn’t so fk all… To be honest your a *** if you didn’t think this was possible…

Just like “Sony Can Access Your Device Even When You Aren’t Signed In To PSN. Is It Legal?” and the article about katsu not releasing the mod. Here’s another example of a click baiting article with a misleading title. Is wololo.net desiring to be part of Gawker?

Yes I admit. The Sony article title was completely misleading, I had no idea what I was talking about. The katsu title wasn’t suggesting anything at all, just saying where we were at this moment. The title of this article could’ve been worded better “Using DualShock 4 on PS3 could have you buying games without knowing.”

The title should have been “Dualshock 4 can operate PS4 and PS3 at the same time; causes some confusion” The whole thing about “buying games without your knowing” antagonizes sony (which we love to do) and is click-baiting. Plus this really isn’t even news. Some random guys on a random forum site presses random buttons on a PS4 controller and bought something? Slow news day.

Another good reason to use a prepaid card with my PSN wallet. No one is going to squeeze more money out of it than the amount I put on the card from time to time. No matter what voodoo is gonna happen. Absolutely with the poor guys who “bought” unknowingly, though.

I’ve used my DS4 on my PS3 a few times when I couldn’t find my PS3 controller and I need to do something on the PS3.

Yes, while using the DS4 on the PS3 you can use the PS4 with the same controller at the same time as the DS4 is not using Bluetooth while hooked up to the PS3.

I have noticed that the DS4 light bar is not on while using it with the PS3.

I have tested this on my MacBook Pro. While the DS4 is hooked up via USB to either the PS3 or a computer, the PS Button does not work but if the PS button is pressed before the PS3 or computer detects the DS4 your PS4 WILL turn on and you can control both the PS3/Computer and the PS4 as the PS3/Computer use the USB port of the DS4 and the PS4 uses Bluetooth.

The DS4 cannot be synced to the PS3 or the computer via Bluetooth.

BTW, Sony made a statement that the DS4 can be used with the PS3 via the USB port on the DS4 controller. It is in the documentation in the package of the DS4 controller.

Well captain obvious, of course if the DS4 is paired with both devices, and you have both devices on, it will use any key press or button press through his interface, so if you go to the right on dark souls on the ps4, it will go to the right too on the ps3 XMB menu, if you press X on darksouls it will access the psn store on the ps3, is like using a single keyboard on 2 different computers at the same time and not wanting screw something on the second one that you have untended, I will finish this with “only in america.”

Cool and sad at the same time. I agree with Jay. If you’re online and not making purchases, remove any or all online purchase options. Or enable purchase authentication, it should prompt you for a password before purchasing.

I’d say they should file a petition so they get refunds and get to keep the stuff they bought etc + a free vita starter bundle coz they already had a ps3 and bought a ps4 early only to be greeted with an issue like this and this means they are faithful sony customers and they should do these things to avoid losing loyal customers. Atleast Sony gave them the option of using DS4 on PS3 which was kind of them but it is incredibly stupid of the customer service guys and sonys devs who couldn’t get a simple thing like that right.

What happends if they start giving out refunds for this stuff? Couldnt ton of people just then do this on purpose, buying stuff on the PS Store and claim that they used the Dualshock 4 on the PS3, not knowing that the PS4 was also on? While i believe that people didnt intentionally buy stuff on the PS Store in this case, i doubt there is any way Sony can check if this is true or not.

After the psn getting hacked why would anyone put credit card info is beyond me. I just buy their cards off Amazon n have the code in minutes. I also use a disposable debit card. I no longer give out any real info to any company.

I dont see why there much to worry about having a creditcard on a Playstation console (or whatever gaming system it might be). Even after the PSN hack, there were incredible few reports of creditcard abuse. I would assume that most banks have insurance against creditcard abuse as well. I have my creditcard on there and i’m not worried at all. I’ve had it there since 2007 and nothing has happened. I dont blame people for being careful though, but personally i’m not worried about my creditcard at all.

I think you misunderstood what i mean. My mentality is that i’m not afraid to have my creditcard info on big places like PSN and Amazon etc.. Seriously, why should i be afraid of this? I’m not talking about tossing my credit card info and personal info on every site possible. This is extremely common, and do you think that million of people get their identity stolen everyday? As i mentioned, i dont blame people if they want to avoid using their creditcard on these places, but personally i’m not worried.

How exactly am i going to be scammed? The only risk i face is if someone hack those servers and get the creditcard info. But even then, i’m insured at my bank, so i wont lose any money. My PSN account is even registered with a fake name and adress, only the creditcard info is real. Maybe you should ask with a bit more info before you keep accusing me if being a scammers wet dream, seriously.

Sorry, i didnt try to sound rude, but its annoying when i get accused of something simply because i said that i’m not afraid to store my creditcard info on PSN and similar sites. In my opinion, its very unlikely that someone will find a way to abuse my creditcard through this. This isnt related to scamming either because i know exactly where i’m placing my creditcard info.

Well the Dr4 shouldent be much different from the ps3 controller so u can play ps3 games on a ps4 think the home buttons like different using on a ps3 but the ps4 should be able to register four contollers and two ps vita think four player split screen be alright on the vita screen. can’t the ps4 jus patch the ds4 guess can use a ps3 controller for now with the ps3.

For me, 2 out of the 3 DS3 controllers I have no longer work properly so I use the DS4 when I want to do something on the PS3 and can’t find my only working DS3 controller. The DS4 controller feels soooooo much better in my hands than the DS3 controller.

I’ve had Sony issue my a few refunds in the past, twice for exploit PSP games that got removed and once for a PS4 PS+ game that, due to a website error, I was charged for when it should have bee free. In the case of the 2 exploit games, I lost the license as a result of the refund, but with the PS4 game, I don’t have the usual PS+ expiration date.

yep, refund is depends on CS who handled the conversation. if he stated that he accidentally bought it under an hour ago, then probably of refund is higher. take it with grain of salts, there’s no guarantee that he’s not in team XBOT.

lol, by reading the title, it sounds like the DS4 is making the purchase by itself… The guy unluckily just produced the right sequence of buttons that led him to go to the ps store and confirm a purchase on his ps4 at the same time he was controlling his ps3 with the former controller. That’s quite a different story.

I think the issue is that you can’t control if people have done this by mistake or not. What would stop me from simply buying a bunch of things on the PS Store, then claim that i did it by mistake of using my PS4 controller on the PS3, not noticing that my PS4 was also running?

I’m also surprised that this first happened now, nearly 4 months after the PS4 launch. Using a PS4 controller wired to a PS3 (you can’t use it wireless, from what i know at least) has after all been possible since the launch of the PS4.

Sony says that the controller definitely cannot control both consoles at once, so I say they tested it and made sure. However, notice that both people were playing Dark Souls When it happened. I think it’s probablyDark Souls that’s causing it through some weird glitch, not Sony.

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